I am not sure if you have been watching the changes the web has been going through.

Fortunately, most of them are very interesting, bringing an exciting evolution with new and better options for building your business online.

The challenge is staying on top of all of the incredible choices and changes, while still staying focused on what is most important to you – running the day to day of your own business.

I know you don’t have time to learn every new tool and feature that comes along, but some of you have been asking me to let you know what to keep in mind, as you are growing your online presence.

To help with that, I am putting together a series of posts called: How The Web is Changing.

This first post talks about several of the most important/interesting things related to Sites and Blogs (with an emphasis on WordPress, since so many of you are using it). I’ll be exploring these changes for you, so you can consider which may be of value to your business.

If you don’t have a WordPress website/blog, much of this will still help you evaluate building a site or redesigning one using some of these new technologies. Along with this review are easy Action Steps to help you evaluate whether they are important for you to pursue.

My next few posts will explore the changes in Mobile, Email Marketing and Social Media.

For now, here are some of the things to consider about your Website/Blog.

Changes to Websites/Blogs

Though many of you are already on WordPress, did you know they keep making it easier, while adding more features?  And if you haven’t checked out any of the newer themes, you are in for a lovely surprise!

For the last few years, we’ve seen major advancements (like image sliders without flash, being able to use more font options, and seeing the site look more consistent on different browsers!). Much of this technology wasn’t supposed to be fully utilized until about 2014 (such as HTML5, not to mention CSS3 and Responsive Design).  Developers are already building with the technology, which means there are more advanced options available to improve your website (whether you use WordPress or not).

Here’s a quick and easy video to explain it in simple terms:

Don’t worry, you don’t need to learn any new technologies. That’s the beauty of many of these features, they are being created to allow you to do things easier (in fact, you are probably already using some of them:

• Drag and Drop features
• Adding a video without using a plugin

Just know the technology exists to make your site even easier for you to use, while providing capabilities to do so much more.

Kind of like The Six Million Dollar Man/Woman (except much, much, much, much, much cheaper)

“We have the technology…better, stronger, faster…”

So, what does this mean for you?

Things that would have taken a lot of heavy programming to code are now easier to incorporate into any site, or are common features within WordPress and on some of the new crop of premium themes (and even free ones, like Twenty Eleven).

In other words, better, faster and unlike the Bionic Man, they are available and cost-effective for everyone.

My current favorite WordPress Premium Theme developers are:

• Theme Blvd: Angela Bowman turned me on to these themes by Jason Bobich of Alaska.  Maybe the long, cold days made this all possible, or maybe this guy just has a good work ethic – which UniqueThink appreciates, but whatever it was, he took the time to create a series of videos to explain all the amazing features he has built into this new selection of premium themes.  And each only costs $37
• My personal favorite of the moment is Alyeska. I am using it to do a fairly quick redesign of the Video Station’s website (it’s not completed, but we made it live, because it is so much better than their old theme, even with very minimal customization!)
• StudioPress: I’ve been recommending the selection of themes from StudioPress for a couple of years now, but the new batch of layout options offer more features, including a landing page template on many of them.  Here is a new one called Focus

“I just finished spending time looking at pretty much every feature. It looks wonderful, and is so easy (and fast) to navigate. You are both priceless and invaluable, to be redundant. Thanks so much!”
- Bruce Shamma – Owner of The Video Station

Many folks will be happy with a theme by either of these developers, right out of the box (virtual box, that is), but if you are like most of my clients, you’ll want a custom look for your unique brand.  Either way, these themes are a great foundation to build a more engaging, dynamic and interactive site.

There are a ton of features built into all of these themes that I could write a whole blog post on (including image/video sliders and multiple layout options), but the other thing that is so interesting about many of these themes is they were created with Responsive Design.

Responsive Design

We’ll talk more about what Responsive Design is, in the near future, but for now, just know that a theme with responsive design takes into account what type of device your visitors are on, when they come to your site.  That means the site will look great on a large monitor and just as good on an iPhone screen.

And for those of you using straight HTML or other platforms, Responsive Design is not WordPress specific.  It’s just that these themes are incorporating it.

If you have considered changing the look of your site, this may be the time.

New Releases for WordPress

Additionally, they are just about to come out with a new features release of WordPress.  You may or may not need these features, but did you upgrade to the recent WordPress 3.3.2 security release?  If not, please do so now, or contact me to do your upgrade!

Your WordPress Action Steps:

Take a look at your admin section (the kitchen, as I call it).  Make sure you are up to date with version 3.3.2 (3.4 should be out any day now, but as you’ve heard me say, it is always important to upgrade when a security release comes out).

If you are up to date, skip down to the next set of Action Steps for Evaluating Your Current Site.

• If you aren’t at the latest security release, you definitely need to upgrade now.  But equally important, make sure you backup your site and verify your plugins are compatible with WordPress.  Why?  Because if your site isn’t backed up and you have a conflict with a plugin, you could loose your site, or at least crash it
• If you are on a much older version (which I hope is not the case), the Broken Link Checker plugin may crash your site on upgrade, so deactivate and remove it, before you upgrade.  Then reinstall the latest version, after your upgrade has been completed.  It’s a great plugin, so remember to reactivate it!
• Back up your theme, too, especially if it has been customized.  You can also check to see if there is a new version of your theme – it will tell you in the upgrade section – but if it has been customized (and it wasn’t done with a child theme or you are unsure), check with the person who customized it, before you upgrade
• After you have backed up and checked your plugins, upgrade to the newest version of WordPress
• If you have not had me teach you how to do the backup and upgrade, let’s set up a time for a tutorial or have me do the maintenance for you!  I can’t say it enough, you have to stay up to date with the security releases.

Your Action Steps to Evaluate Your Current Site:

• Is it doing everything you want it to do?
• Are you happy with the look of it?
• Does it have all the functionality you want or need for your visitors?
• Is your content current and are you adding new content on a frequent enough basis?
• Are you integrating with social media appropriately?
• Do you provide easy ways for folks to share your content?
• Does it look/function well on different sized screens?

If the answer to these are all yes, congratulations and keep up the good work.

If the answers are no, it’s time to do a little exploration.

For those of you currently using WordPress, or are interested in redesigning in WordPress, take a look at these new themes with Responsive Design. See what functionality they provide and which look you like.

Visit your competition’s website, to see what they are doing right and what they have done wrong, too. (Don’t just assume, because they do it, it works. Look at their site like a new customer might look at it.  Is it easy to find the info you need?  Do they answer the most frequent questions clients ask you?)

Then ask some of your current clients for feedback about what works and doesn’t work for them, both on your site and – if you are comfortable with it – your competition’s site.

What did you find out, when reviewing these Action Steps?  Were they revealing?  Did they help give you some direction?

Obviously, there are always more questions to ask and more to evaluate, but let me know what you discovered, by posting a comment below.

You can also help to direct the next part of this series, by letting me know if you are more interested in Mobile, Email Marketing or Social Media.  Tell me which you’d like to see me write about next in this series: How the Web is Changing.

Recently, I received an email with the following question about whether keywords mattered.  With her permission, I am posting A’ra’s question about the Value of Keywords, along with my response.  Hope it helps you, as well.  Here’s A’ra’s question:

“Are keywords still useful? What is the latest on website optimization. Talked with someone lately who told me that using keywords was so overdone that google doesn’t look for them any more. I know you’re always up on these things, so I was wondering what’s new with the latest and greatest in website land.”- A’ra Lippitt Blair

Here is my response about whether Google thinks keywords are relevant.

Hi A’ra:

Your friend was almost correct (if they were referring to the Meta Keyword field, not keywords themselves). It is a confusing thing, and without being there, I am not sure if they explained it incorrectly or if they understand it incorrectly, themselves.

Using appropriate keywords (on your page and in your code) are still very important for optimizing your site. What an appropriate keyword is, is a whole different conversation. So, let’s stay on their comment about keywords for the time being.

There are sections within the site’s code called Meta Title, Meta Description and Meta Keyword Tags. These 3 sections use keywords (words that are ‘key’ to helping people find your site).

These sections aren’t visible to the site visitor, but are important to be filled out to help the search engines rank you better. However, the Meta Keyword Tags are currently believed to be ‘less important’ to fill out than the other two sections.

Which is where your friend’s comment comes from. What your friend was most likely referring to is: Google has publicly stated they are currently not looking at the Meta Keyword Tags, because folks were ‘stuffing this field with inappropriate keywords’ (in these cases people were using words or phrases that get searched a lot, but are irrelevant to the specific site’s content).

NOTE: Here is a video of Matt Cutt’s from Google talking about this subject (Sept. 2009):

Yet, “keywords” (appropriate words to describe your services, or better yet your potential client/customer’s current problem) are what these 3 Meta sections consist of, so ‘keywords’ are still relevant.

And, each page/post may have its own set of ‘key’ words or phrases, which may be more relevant to the actual content on that specific page.

See why it gets confusing?

But, again, going back to your friend’s comment, they were (or should have been) merely talking about the Meta Keyword section not being relevant, not the ‘concept’ of using keywords.

AND, now, this is where it gets even trickier: just because Google isn’t using the Meta Keyword section does not mean it isn’t being used by other search engines NOR does it mean Google won’t decide to use it again in the future.

So, I recommend you do fill out the Meta sections, per page, with the appropriate keywords to describe the content on each specific page.

And, since you (A’ra) are using WordPress, you can get a plugin to help do just that! There are many to consider, but I tend to use the free version of All in One SEO Pack.

SEO is a big subject, and we’re just tapping into it a bit here. What I suggest, if you are interested in learning more, is to consider hiring someone to either teach you or do the appropriate work for you (make sure it is a reputable company that keeps up on the latest info).  As an online marketing consultant, not an SEO specialist, I  do what I call SEO Lite, which sets you up with the best practices and latest info, to help you optimize your site for the visitors, as well as the search engines.  I prefer to teach these SEO basics (while focusing on other ways to generate traffic to the site, since most of my clients don’t have huge budgets for SEO).  The SEO Lite sets you up with a foundation, because SEO is an ongoing thing. And, it is better for you to understand the basics, so you can continue to optimize each page and post for its individual content.

If you don’t have funds for one on one consultations, I suggest (if you don’t mind taking the trip up to Boulder) taking Dave Taylor’s SEO workshops at Boulder Digital Arts – use coupon code Bethany2011, to get 10% OFF!

And, you can also read the blog posts I have written on the subject, here are links to them:

• What is a Keyword and how do I find mine?
• SEO tips: How to Optimize your site
• Setting Realistic SEO Expectations

What I tell folks is: You will probably have to read each of these posts a couple of times. Then start with some small steps.

Let me know if that answers your question.

Focusing on the many possibilities…
Bethany

So, this was the response to A’ra’s question.  But what about you?  Are you hearing confusing, concerning or even conflicting information on SEO (Search Engine Optimization) or Keyword Research?  If so, comment below and I’ll try to answer it or find someone who can.  Who knows, maybe your question may lead to a full blog post response (I’ll always ask permission first, if I reference you by name)!  Or maybe you have some insights to share on the subject.
Feel free to comment below (with constructive suggestions, please):

Finally, WordPress.com makes it easier to switch over to a version of WordPress.ORG (self hosted version, that means it sits on your own hosting plan, instead of on their server, which gives you A LOT more freedom).  This used to be a chore to do, but WordPress.com has made it much easier with a new Premium option called Offsite Redirect.  Yes, Premium comes with a small cost, but nothing compared to the time and effort of the old way of accomplishing this.  It’s only $12 a yr.

So what does this Premium upgrade get you?  I’ll let them tell you with copy from their post about it called Hello, Goodbye: Offsite Redirect Upgrade – by Jane Wells

Purchasing the Offsite Redirect upgrade will take the traffic coming to your old wordpress.com blog and forward it to your new domain so that links to your old content won’t break and you won’t take an SEO hit as a result of your move. Oh, and unlike the old domain mapping/DNS workaround, the signup process is easy as pie. Mmm, pie.

So, now the question on your mind might be: Why would I want to move from WordPress.com to WordPress.ORG?

And, the answer is, if you are happy and have no complaints, stay where you are.  However, if you have ever wanted any of the following, it might be a good time to consider a move:

• Your own domain name: OK, this one isn’t that much of a problem, because you could always point your own domain name to WordPress.com – and there is even a way to make it so all your pages follow through with that address, but there is a fee for that!  So, if you don’t want your address to be MyBlogName.WordPress.com, you have three choices:
  1. Buy a domain name and point it to your .WordPress.com account
  2. Buy the domain and then pay a Premium to have all your pages and posts reflect that name
  3. Use the self-hosted version of WordPress.ORG – as I said earlier, this reason alone may not be compelling enough, but read on…
• Control of Ads: On occasion, the WordPress.com folks will throw an ad on your free .WordPress.com blog.  It is their way of keeping their service free (and they do provide a lot and ask little).  So, again, let’s compare the options.  The one concern is how they are placing the ads?  Are they relevant to your keywords?  Since I don’t know how they pick when to put an ad on someones site, it leaves some questions. And, though it is unlikely, I wonder if there is a chance they could put up an ad to your direct competitor?  Hopefully, they have a good system in place to avoid that, but here are your options, regarding ads:
  1. You can pay a Premium to remove these ads from your .com site/blog
  2. You can agree to do a 50/50 split to run your own ads now (I had never seen this before, so not sure of other details)
  3. You can move to WordPress.ORG where you can have the freedom to put up your own ads (maybe subtly promoting your own products/services), make money from offering ad space to others (if your site/blog is appropriate), or be completely ad-free.
• Scripts/Codes/Plugins: Sometimes you want to put a script on your site/blog, to do some functionality – for instance, collect email addresses from your visitors.  With WordPress.com, you can not put any 3rd party software or code onto your WordPress.com accounts, so you’d definitely want to move to WordPress.ORG to take advantage of the 1000s of amazing add-ons available from the WordPress community, in the form of plugins.  Go to WordPress.ORG’s Plugin Directory to find many of the free ones.  Similar to the iPhone Apps, if you are looking to do something, there’s a plugin for that…
• Customize the look of your blog/site: To do some light customization (changing colors, for instance) you could pay WordPress.Com to get into the CSS (providing you know CSS), but to get a look that really meets your vision, you could move to WordPress.ORG and use any theme (layout, the look of your site) or have someone custom create a look for you

Again, if you are happy with the way your WordPress.COM site works and/or OK with paying them the small Premiums to get some of the other options, then stay where you are.

However, if you are going to be paying for all those premiums, to try to get the results you want, I suggest using WordPress.ORG and have full control of your site (ads, look, plugins…).  To me, the plugins alone are reason to move!  Either way, you now have at least one less excuse for not moving to a self-hosted version!

I sure could have used this new Offsite Redirect feature, years ago, but glad to finally see it now.

Bottom Line: The $12 a year fee is a small price to pay, compared to the headache of the old way to do this redirect process!

Are you using WordPress.com?  Were you considering which version of WordPress (.com vs. .org) to use for your new site/blog?  Did this post help to answer those questions for you?  If you have additional questions, either comment below, or contact UniqueThink for a free 1-hour consult, to discuss your unique situation.

Recently, it became clear to me that I was not walking the talk.  That as a marketer, I was using excuses like: “I spend my days marketing others” and “I am very fortunate that I get so many referrals, so I don’t need to be marketing myself.”  But then, it occurred to me I couldn’t ask other folks to be investing their time to doing email marketing, blogging and social media, if I was putting it on the back burner, myself.

I understand how hard it is to find time, and how easy it is to ‘do it later’.  So, to help me, as well as all of you reading this, I have decided to start back to the basics, not only to give me a fresh start, but also to help all of you learn during my process.

To get started, I am going to have to make sure I know my intended audience. Then I can create an editorial calendar, which will keep me more focused on blogging several times a month, mentioning those blog posts on appropriate social media outlets, and then wrap each month up with an email recap.

I currently mention a lot of great articles in my status updates on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, so I will continue doing that, as well.  The articles are ones which inspire my/your business, offer insights on cool new tools (from a new WordPress plugin to a time management app), and bring new ideas on how to communicate my/your meaningful difference.

So, how to get started (or re-energized) and accomplish the goal of understanding my intended audience better?

First, I need to do the first thing I have my prospective clients do.  Answer some questions about who my audience is, what they really want/need from me, and where my business is at with its current marketing efforts.

Why don’t you do this along with me?  Answer the questions for your own business…

I have a list of questions that I tend to start with, and sometimes I have to ask less of them, because the client makes it easy by being clear up front.  Other times, I have to dig deeper.

Here is the first (and yes, obvious) question that helps me know whether the client has put thought into what they say when folks ask them what they do.  Though the question is obvious, it really makes it clear how well the client knows their own audience:

Describe your company – what is your Elevator Speech? (an elevator speech is a short – very short – statement you can say to folks ‘between floors in an elevator’, to explain what you do, and whether they or someone they know can benefit from finding out more).

Here is a bad elevator speech, I should know, I used it my first year out: “I can do any kind of marketing you need.  What are you looking for?”

This was bad because most people don’t really know what marketing is – they might think it is sales, public relations, or marketing research (calling folks to ask their opinion on a product).  I don’t really do those tasks, though I have and could, I really did not want to be doing ‘those things’.  And, yet, I was telling them I could do anything.  Also, what I found was though it was an open ended question, when I asked them what they were looking for, they usually didn’t know.  If they wanted anything from me, it was help to figure out why they would need me.  I was not being clear with my own marketing message.

Here is a better elevator speech: “I help people build their complete online presence: blogging, email marketing, social media…  Since my forte is marketing, I also create or redesign websites (using WordPress) with the goal to make it easier for your visitors to get the info they want.”

Though I don’t always say it exactly like that, I can state something to that effect in about 14 seconds.  At which point, people either say, they have been considering one or another of these activities, they know someone else who is looking for help with marketing, they don’t know what social media really is or they just heard about WordPress and have a question.

Sometimes, they tell me they have no interest in Twitter, or some other site, and I get to ask what it is that they don’t like. And we begin to have a great conversation.

On occasion, they say they know someone else who offers similar services and then I can ask who the person is – because I may either know them or may find someone new to align with (I’m always open to talk with folks who are doing similar things – as I’ve found often its more complimentary than competition).

However they respond, at least they are responding. I don’t get that blank stare I used to get from my old conversation ‘stopper’, where I was leaving it up to them to tell me what they didn’t know they needed.

Anyway, getting back to the questions I ask, I’ve provided a link to download UniqueThink’s New Client Questionnaire.  This way, you can quiz yourself on how well you know your own company and why you are doing things you are doing and what you are trying to accomplish with any new marketing goals.  It is a very helpful exercise, so I truly hope you take advantage of this and try it, now.

You can either print it out and ask yourself the questions or call me for a 1-hr free consult, to go over it together.  Again, when I go over these questions with the client, it is to help them figure this all out, as much as it is for me to understand where to go next.  I don’t always ask every client every question.  Sometimes I skip around and sometimes I probe deeper on one specific question.  If you are reading the questionnaire, right now, you may notice, some of the questions are repetitive.  Those are for those times I haven’t felt like I fully gathered the insights I needed to understand the clients goals (or that they haven’t really addressed the goal), with the way the question was originally framed.  And in most cases, I tend to ask 5-8 of the questions and ‘get it’ enough to move to the next step.

Well, that’s enough info to get you started on the first step.  Any questions, yet?  How do you feel about going on this journey with me?  Do you see the value of exploring or re-exploring this (even if you’ve already begun your own marketing efforts)?  Feel free to share your experiences, insights, and more… by commenting below.

Editor’s Note: The video of the Blogging for Biz panel is now available at WordPress.TV – it is also added to the end of this post.
I had a great time at WordCamp Boulder.  Beth J. Hayden – of BloggingWithBeth.com – and Jim Turner – of OneByOneMedia.com – shared the Blogging for Business Panel with me (Bethany Siegler of UniqueThink).  I heard there was video of it, so I won’t repeat much of what was discussed.  And once I find it, I’ll link to it.  In the meantime, I did want to add to the conversation we started about what types of businesses should be blogging.

It has long been my belief that ANY company CAN benefit from blogging.  As a panel we came up with the following, as some of the top reasons to consider blogging for your own biz:

1. Get found online
2. Build a community of people who trust your company will take care of and listen to them
3. Communicate your meaningful difference, to let folks see how your products/services help resolve their situation

When our panel was asked if blogging was REALLY for every type of business, there was a discussion about whether a Dry Cleaner could truly build a successful blog.  My response: “YES, definitely!” and then I think I gave a few examples off the top of my head, like Green Cleaning Pros OR Cons.  I could come up with tons of post ideas people would like to read, there are endless topics, like treating your garment when the stain first occurs TO how to care for that antique quilt you inherited from Great Aunt Sally.

Then, to prove my theory about ANY business benefiting from blogging, I offered the audience an extreme example of a business blog. I was once in a conversation where someone asked, “Is it appropriate for a Mortician to have a business blog?”  And, to me there is no question, YES!, so I gave a quick example of a possible topic to the WordCamp audience.  Not everyone might be interested in that specific topic I mentioned, but if done correctly the overall blog could offer readers a great deal of trust and a level of comfort when picking out a funeral home.

As I mentioned earlier, I don’t want to take the time to talk about what we already talked about at WordCamp (but you can find the video, if you want to hear the whole panel discussion.  And, if you do find the video before me, please let me know!).  For the rest of this post, I’d like to focus on how blogging can be good for every kind of business:

Now, when I say ANY company can benefit from a blog, I have to state the conversation Beth and I had after the panel.  We both agreed we should have stated:

There is one ‘type’ of company who should not blog: A company who is NOT willing to make the commitment to blogging

However, what does that mean?  What is ‘the commitment to blogging’?  The commitment is about figuring out why you should be blogging and coming up with a strategy to make it happen.  And then, making it happen!

Below are some tips to get you started:

• Understand the purpose of your blog.  Determine what you want your company and, most importantly, your readers to get out of the conversations. For instance, here are some good reasons to want to blog (you should want to do more than less of these):
  • Answer Frequently Asked Questions: Let people get to know your product/service better
  • Get visitors familiar with the company’s philosophy: Helps to assure it’s aligned with the customers’ needs
  • Encourage Involvement: Gets the customers’ to take actions, like commenting, to build a community and even share insights and ideas to help others
  • Become a thought leader in the industry: Share your knowledge of the overall industry, not just your products place in it
  • Learn from your clients:  Listening to what your readers have to say can help to create future services and products they want, instead of what you assume they might want
  • Engage with your community: Having a blog is a great way to get to know your customers’ better.  The more back and forth dialogue, the better
• Lay out a successful, effective and easily maintainable strategy:
  • Decide who will be contributing or better yet, ask the staff which portion of the following tasks they might be good at helping with: content manager, editor (if needed), writers, researchers, media/arts department (don’t worry if you are all of the above – there are always tools to help)
  • Figure out how frequently you want content added and if that is a realistic goal, with staffs’ other obligations – you can always adjust, but don’t overload at first, or it may never happen
  • Determine the appropriate tools (WordPress is at the top of that list)
  • Plan an editorial calendar – just like the newspapers and magazines do.  This does not mean you can only write when something is on the calendar – it just makes it easier to know when some important dates or material needs to be added.  But go ahead and blog on a whim, if you have something of interest to share!
  • Set realistic goals, maybe you are unable to blog as often as you’d like, but when you do, it is great content!  Or maybe you only have time to do short posts summarizing things you read somewhere else, instead of heavily researched articles prepared in-house.  As long as it is relevant and informative, that is fine!
• Follow through, start your blog and make sure to maintain it!

Please keep in mind, these are just suggestions, and they can be tailored to work for any company.  Maybe instead of you writing the content in-house, you hire a copywriter.  Or maybe you go to the local college and get an intern, if your budget is tight.

As far as a ‘type of business’, there really aren’t any businesses that I can think of who could not benefit from a blog.  If you have a business and don’t think your readers would be interested in reading your blog, why not give me a chance to brainstorm an idea or two, by commenting below.  And if you just want to challenge me, just name a biz that you don’t think could find material worth blogging about, to their specific audience and let me see if I could come up with a couple of content ideas.  Post your thoughts and challenges in the comment box below…

Watch the Blogging For Biz Panel at WordCamp Boulder: (Note: It is a 45 min video, so may take time to load – and looks like nothing is happening.  If you have issues, you can also go directly to WordPress.TV to view it there, along with the rest of WordCampBoulder).

University of Colorado at Boulder’s Marketing and Creative Services department has partnered with Bethany Siegler of UniqueThink, to offer her WordPress: Managing Content training to select clients. The department will continue its focus on communications planning, web site design, development and usability, while utilizing Bethany’s experience for training clients to maintain content on their sites using the WordPress platform.

Bethany looks forward to working with CU.  She has been doing a similar presentation at Boulder Digital Arts (BDA), which is for the general public.

The next public workshop at BDA is:

Tuesday, May 18th, 2010
6PM – 9PM
BDA Arapahoe Studio
1600 Range Street, Suite 100,
Boulder, CO  80301

If you are interested in attending this presentation, please visit the Boulder Digital Art’s Website.

If your organization, association, meeting up group or company is looking for WordPress lecture style or hands on training opportunities, please contact Bethany at UniqueThink to arrange for speaking opportunities.

Update 10/28/099:  This class has been rescheduled, due to snow.  It is now being held on Wed, November 4th.  Same time, same place.

I am doing a Free Workshop (lecture style) on Why to Use WordPress.ORG to build your complete website.

WORDPRESS WEBSITES: How to get a cost-effective, easy to maintain website

NEW DATE: Wednesday, November 4th, 2009
Westminster Public Library, College Hill, 6-7:30 p.m.
3705 West 112th Avenue
Westminster, CO  80031

Here’s the link to Google Maps

Call 303-404-5104 to register for this FREE program.

You need to RSVP – there is limited room, so make sure you call

Here is what I’ll be talking about:

• Get introduced to why WordPress is a great option for any small business to build and maintain their own site.
  • No more expensive graphic designers or waiting on a webmaster to make a simple change on your site.
  • If you have an old static site that isn’t bringing in traffic, or if you’re creating a website for the first time, WordPress is a great option for any small business.
  • Maintain your own website with this quick, easy and cost-effective tool that grows along with your company.

• What we will be discussing
  • Do you really need a Site AND a Blog for your business?
  • The difference between Blogs and Sites
  • WordPress.org (not WordPress.com)
    • It’s Free software (all you need is a hosting service provider and some plugins)
    • Maintain your own site/blog
    • Built in Marketing Advantages
    • A glance at how it works
      • Admin panel, Themes, Plugins and Widgets (what are they)
        • Steps to get started

      This series was coordinated by Dhyan Atkinson, and there are a lot of other great workshops in the series, as well, so go to the library’s website and check them out. Beth Hayden just did a great one on BLOGGING FOR YOUR BUSINESS. And the next one, after mine is Cindy Kalman, talking about GRAPHIC DESIGN IN THE INTERNET AGE.  So, check them all out.

      If you miss any of them, don’t worry, we’ll be doing them again in the new year.  Also, don’t forget I am doing WordPress Workshops at Boulder Digital Arts, as well.

Learn how, and why, to use WordPress for your complete web solution.  Set up and create sites (as well as blogs) using WordPress.org:

Getting Started with WordPress – For Content Creators
Date(s):
Monday, July 06, 2009 | 6pm – 9pm For description and more info, click here

Getting Started with WordPress – Web Developers
Date(s):
Tuesday, July 14, 2009 | 6pm – 9pm For description and more info, click here

Location:
BDA Studio
2510 47th Street, Suite 202, Boulder, CO  80301

Registration and more info available at BoulderDigitalArts.com

OK, many of you have been asking us to do this, and it ends up that due to family circumstances Doug won’t be able to teach his normal WordPress Workshop for Boulder Digital Arts.  So, Angela Bowman and I will be doing it for him.

If you have been wanting to learn how to set up WordPress.org for yourself, instead of hiring me to do it for you, this is the time and place.

You actually benefit from both Angela and my own experience.  Interestingly, we both took Doug’s class a couple of years before we met each other.  So, when we did meet, we were so excited to find someone else who loved building websites (not just blogs), from the fantastic WordPress tool set.

Anyway, for these classes, you get both of us teaching you all we learned from Doug, originally, plus all we’ve learned since.

So take full advantage of it.  Instead of paying one of us our normal hourly fee, you get both of us for 3 full hours, per class.

There are two options, and taking both classes could be beneficial, depending on your goals.

The first Workshop is for those who want to run the site themselves, to understand the power of WordPress.org as a content-creation or management tool, plus a review of the marketing advantages of using it.

The other workshop is  for using WordPress.org as a site-building tool ( bit more technical, so it’s geared toward those who want to learn all the nooks and crannies).

There will be a review of plugins during both classes, and some of the content will overlap, so if you have questions on which to take, call me and we’ll figure it out.

Sign Up Now, while there are seats available! Or contact me with any questions

There’s going to be lots of fun information.

Getting Started with WordPress – For Content Creators

Getting Started with WordPress – Web Developers

OK, I know, I am a WordPress Dork, but really, this thing just keeps getting better and better!

I must admit, when I heard about 2.8, I didn’t expect much. After all, WordPress 2.7.1 did such a great job that I wasn’t missing much, other than the theme uploader. And, with Vladimir Prelovac’s Theme Test Drive plugin, I didn’t even miss that!

So what could WordPress 2.8 have that I’d need? Well watch the video and you’ll see.

If you haven’t watched the video yet, and you are still reading this, I’ll give you a hint of why to install 2.8: (Angela, this one is for you) You really won’t need to open up the FTP for editing php!

If you aren’t coding, that one won’t be too exciting, but then check out the Widgets section. In fact, here, just watch the video. And, if you are as big a dork as me, you’ll be going “No Way! How Cool!” through the whole thing.

Oh, and the nod to jazz is nice, too.

And, if you are as big a WordPress fan (if not a WordPress dork), you may want to check out Inc. Magazine’s “The Way I Work” feature on WordPress visionary Matt Mullenweg.

When it comes to WordPress 2.8, dubbed Baker – after the great Chet Baker – to this dork, it is like the first time I heard Kind of Blue by Miles Davis. I find myself torn between enjoying it quietly on my own and making everyone I can find listen to why it is so great.

If you aren’t familiar with why I love WordPress, check out some of the WordPress based sites I have created or contact me for a free 1-hr consultation of why you should be using it to maintain your own site and/or blog.

Also, feel free to share what you like (or maybe dislike) about WordPress 2.8, by commenting below…

One of my clients who does a lot with videos, Freddy at Atomic Tango, shared this info with me and I had to share it with all of you.

As you’ll see from the video below, WordPress.com is getting into the video hosting business.  What does that mean?  Well, if it means what I believe it does, it means these things:

• You can now host a video at WordPress.com directly – you don’t have to host your own videos somewhere else and then embed them into your own site
• As Freddy points out, you aren’t advertising for some other site, because there doesn’t appear to be a logo – like YouTube puts in the corner of their embedded videos
• Folks can easily share your video by embedding it to their own site (such as self-hosted versions of WordPress.org), as I have done with the below video from VideoPress‘s site – which will give you more insights on what tools it includes and why this tool is very interesting, so go ahead and watch that now:

This sounds like a great idea for folks at WordPress.com.

The biggest downside of things – that I can think of at the moment – is that there isn’t currently a way for WordPress.org bloggers to directly host using this cool tool, we still have to have a WordPress.com account, upload it there and embed here. But in most cases you would already have a WordPress.com account, because you’re probably using Akismet to protect your comments and that is the only place to get your API key. So, you could use that existing account for hosting the videos and embed here. Though that is kind of like hosting it on YouTube – minus their logo presence.

Also, if you aren’t hosting the video at a high traffic site, like YouTube, then you aren’t getting their extra exposure for your video.

So what do you think? If you are using WordPress.org already, is it worth it to use this new option? Maybe for the sizing and other features listed in the video? Watch the video and let me know your thoughts, by commenting below!